In a distribution system, a retailer or other product distributor (which may collectively be referred to as distributors) typically maintains an inventory of various units of items at one or more distribution centers, fulfillment centers, cross-docking facilities, materials handling facilities or warehouses (which may collectively be referred to herein as materials handling facilities). The inventory units are ordered from one or more vendors, received at the materials handling facilities as inbound shipments, and stocked in inventory of the materials handling facilities. In an order fulfillment process, orders for units of items may be received from customers of the distributor. Units of the ordered items are picked from various locations in the inventory in the materials handling facilities, processed for shipping, and shipped as outbound shipments to the customers.
The order fulfillment process may include a sortation process, in which units of items picked for orders are sorted into their respective orders. For example, requests (e.g., orders) for units of items from requestors may be divided among multiple pickers, who then pick units corresponding to the requests. The orders may be subdivided among the pickers; therefore, two or more of the pickers may pick units for one order. Consequently, a sort operation to select the proper units of items for given orders from the aggregations of units returned by each respective picker is required. Conventionally, sorting may be performed using automated sorting mechanisms or manual sorting systems. Automated sorting mechanisms for sorting certain types of inventory units according to individual orders include, but are not limited to, the Crisplant® sorter, Eurosort® sorters, and automated sorting mechanisms offered by other vendors. Using an automated sorting mechanism, incoming picked units of items for multiple different customer orders are received at the automated sorting mechanism and sorted by the automated mechanism according to individual orders.
Picking Errors
Whether automated or manual techniques (or some combination thereof) are employed to pick units from inventory prior to sortation, picking errors can occur when the units are incorrectly picked from inventory. For example, an operator may mistakenly pick an incorrect unit from inventory, such as might be the case when units of similar (yet to some extent different) items are located proximate to each other in inventory. For example, an operator may be instructed to pick a book that is part of a series of volumes. As is often the case with a multi-volume series of books, each book may look strikingly similar while being differentiated by a few easily overlooked features, such as a volume number printed on the cover and/or spine of the book. In this example, an agent may mistakenly pick the wrong volume of a multi-volume series of books.
While various embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that various embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of various embodiments as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.